The Emotional Politics of Making America Great Again: Trump’s Working Class Appeals (original) (raw)

Trump's Electoral Speeches and His Appeal to the American White Working Class

Forthcoming in the British Journal of Sociology. This paper contributes to the study of social change by considering boundary work as a dimension of cultural change. Drawing on the computer-assisted qualitative analysis of 73 formal speeches made by Donald Trump during the 2016 electoral campaign, we argue that his political rhetoric, which led to his presidential victory, addressed the white working classes’ concern with their declining position in the national pecking order. He addressed their concern by raising the moral status of this group, that is, by 1) emphatically describing them as hard working Americans who are victims of globalization; 2) voicing their concerns about ‘people above’ (professionals, the rich, and politicians); 3) drawing strong moral boundaries toward undocumented immigrants, refugees and Muslims; 4) presenting African American and (legal) Hispanic Americans as workers who also deserve jobs; 5) stressing the role of working class men as protectors of women and LGBTQ people. This particular case study of cultural resonance provides a novel, distinctively sociological approach for capturing dynamics of social change.

Classism: Trump's Appeal to The White Working Class and its Relationship to Race in

Abstract In the wake of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, the intersection of class and race emerged as a central theme in American politics. This essay delves into the insightful perspectives offered by two prominent sources: Nancy Isenberg's "Class in America and Donald Trump" and Charles Blow's "The Lowest White Man." Against a deeply polarized American electorate, these sources provide invaluable insights into the appeal of "Trumpism" and the broader implications of President Lyndon Johnson's poignant 1960s quote. The Trump campaign garnered substantial attention for its resonance with a significant segment of the white working class, prompting us to explore the rationale behind this phenomenon. Specifically, I will dissect how Isenberg's historical analysis elucidates the persistence of Trump's appeal within this demographic and assess whether Johnson's prescient quote regarding racial division and economic manipulation in American politics foreshadowed the ascent of Trump's popularity. By scrutinizing the intersection of class and race as delineated by Isenberg and Johnson, this essay aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the underpinnings of Trump's political success and its implications for contemporary American democracy.

Trumponomics, Neoliberal Branding, and the Rhetorical Circulation of Affect

Advances in the History of Rhetoric, 2018

This article studies Trumponomics as a brand that derives its economic and political purchase from the patterns of affective circulation opened up by the contemporary political economy. Because neoliberalism enables branding to both extract surplus wealth and appropriate surplus affect directly from consumers, it changes the rhetorical terrain. In this new landscape, Trump’s incoherent economic policies fade into the background as the production of his economic brand occupies the foreground. My argument theorizes affect within the labor theory of value, analyzes the Trump brand within that framework, and explores the implications of including affective value within the rhetorical toolbox.

From Politics as Vocation to Politics as Business: Populist Social Performance and Narrative Fusion in Trump Rallies

P opulist movements seek to bolster the power of "the people" and undermine elites. In the United States a businessman, Donald Trump, has convinced a significant portion of the population that he is a man of the people. We answer three interrelated questions about what may be Trump's biggest "win": the transformation of populist discourse for a new century. How does Trump embed himself inside his followers' own deep story? How does he fuse their story with a tale of American restoration? And how does he delegitimize politics as a vocation and valorize politics as business? Drawing on a systematic analysis of Trump/MAGA rallies held in four different regions from 2015 to 2021, we analyze how Trump used his performance to crystalize a distinctly American style of populism. We focus on the cultural accomplishment of his performance, particularly the creation of a business-friendly rhetoric that leverages popular cultural idioms to legitimate politics not as a vocation, but as a business. We find that Trump uses the popular idioms of standup comedy and competitive sports culture. This performance contributed to his 2016 win, yet framing politics as a game to be won runs the risk of reducing deliberative democratic process to election-night outcomes, makes political parties into opposing teams, and divides voters into winners and losers.

Donald Trump, American Populism and Affective Media

This chapter will consider the way the transformation of media values and political economy have driven the resurgence of right wing populism in America. Broadcast media have been central to American right-wing populism and movement conservatism in the last thirty years. Fox News and conservative personalities from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones do no simply represent a new political and media voice but embody the convergence of politics and media in which affect and enjoyment are the central values of media production. The consumption of Fox News is not a dispassionate exercise drawing on critical faculties, but an affective investment in movement politics and branded conservatism. This audience spans traditional and new media forms as an individuated public primed to the populist politics of affect and alienation. This has been a fecund space for media entrepreneurs and right-wing populists who use access to politicized, conservative audiences to make an end-run around the traditional disciplines of politics and journalism. Donald Trump is the synthesis of a media-politics in which affective intensity and enjoyment are the principle political economic values. He is not simply a media savvy showman, he offers himself as a subject of enjoyment and elicits affective identification.

What Trump's Campaign Speeches Show About His Lasting Appeal to the White Working Class

AARN: Political Organization (Topic), 2017

The enduring loyalty of many U.S. white working class voters toward President Trump has puzzled many political pundits. A Quinnipiac University Poll suggests that as of October 11, 55% of white people without college degrees approved of Trump’s handling of his job, compared to 38% in the total population. The approval rate from the white working class has held steady throughout his first year in office (it was 52% the week after his inauguration). At the same time, his overall disapproval rating among all voters has risen from 44% to 56%.

Affective Ideology and Trump's Popularity

2017

[please do not cite for publication w/o permission] For too long, analysis of right-wing populism has been caught between the Scylla of invocations of macro-scale structural factors such as economic precarity and the Charybdis of belief-centered notions of ideology. The answer to false belief about structural factors was to have been ideology critique, which would cognitively correct false belief by presenting arguments about the true structure of society, how the 2008 crisis really came about, the racial makeup of welfare recipients, the economic benefits of immigration, and so on. The rather complete failure of such a top-down, cognitive, notion of ideology critique has highlighted the need to target the personal and interpersonal emotional factors at work in constructing and maintaining right-wing populist movements. These emotional factors should be seen as direct investments, such that voters are not fooled by false beliefs, but directly desire what populism promises to deliver: an America that is great again, a restoration of the proper hierarchy among whites and "minorities," a rebuke to "liberal elites," and so on. We first survey work in political theory and psychology on emotion and right-wing populism (section 2), then we present a notion of "affective ideology" (section 3) that puts belief and desire on equal footing, insisting on the inseparable union of emotions and cognition in concrete life, and allows for a full spectrum of emotions, including hope and optimism alongside fear and anxiety, as factors in cementing right-wing populism. We conclude with a discourse analysis-using primarily Hochschild's case study of the Louisiana Tea Party-that illustrates the utility of "affective ideology" as an instrument for analyzing Donald Trump's appeal to American voters (section 4).

Emotional Voting, Racial Animus and Economic Anxiety in the 2016 Presidential Election

American Review of Politics, 2020

In the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, several competing theories were offered purporting to explain Trump’s appeal to American voters. These included arguments that Trump voters were more prone to hold authoritarian tendencies (Choma 2017); that Trump’s mostly “white working class” voters felt left behind in an increasingly globalized economy; or that Trump voters were attracted to the candidate’s racialized and sexist language (Schaffner et. al 2017). This paper utilizes data from AdSAM, an emotional response survey system, to measure the emotive responses of likely voters toward candidates in the 2016 election. The survey also measured emotional responses towards issues including abortion, immigration, the economy, and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The results suggest that the strongest predictors for voting for Trump were negative feelings towards the economy and negative responses to the BLM movement, and emphasizes emotional, rather than cognitiv...

Suspending disbelief: The role of emotions in political communication

By January 2009, Barack Obama had become the most popular leader in the world, restoring the USA’s global image and crystallising a wave of European fascination that remains unchanged (Pew Research Center 2009; Harris 2009a 2009b; Transatlantic Trends 2008; 2009). Two years earlier, he was virtually unknown in his own country, let alone Europe. How did the Obama phenome- non flourish in an era of political cynicism? How can we interpret Obama’s success in terms of communication and emotional appeal? In order to suggest some answers, I have studied audiovisual materials up to January 2009 – many of which can be accessed by following the links provided – and drawn on cross- disciplinary literature to flesh out my interpretation of the findings from a small- scale qualitative research project. Obama’s campaign managed to embody American history in a personal story, and turned a personal story into American history. This was achieved by effectively blending old and new communication strategies. Accordingly, the campaign was embedded in a multilayered architecture of meanings, as well as underpinned by carefully crafted communication, and the synergetic use of grassroots mobilization, media technologies and symbol-building master narra- tives. My main focus is to reflect on the emotional and communicative fabric of Obama’s transatlantic appeal. I will argue that a key component of this phenomenon was Obama’s steady transformation into the kind of symbol that many were longing for.

Donald Trump’s use of Twitter during his campaign ahead of the US presidential election of 2016 – why Trump’s tweets are emotionally effective

This paper shows how Donald Trump uses Twitter to spread emotions, more specifically fear and anger. Noteworthy is the fact that Trump’s discourse is not primarily emotional. Although anger may sound legitimate, fear is viewed as an emotion one should be ashamed of. Rather than verbalising these emotions, discrediting his opponents – i.e. other candidates and journalists – and legitimising his own discourse for the sake of moral values are the hallmarks of Trump’s rhetoric. By presenting the future as precarious and uncertain, he stands out as the only one able to make America powerful and influential (again). He adopts the stance of a victim, which is amplified by the impact that social networks have on communities in terms of affiliation.